OTTAWA — Military officials are fighting a losing battle to keep their bases and infrastructure from crumbling and turning into health hazards, the auditor general reported Tuesday.

The problems have led to a rash of fire hazards and other health and safety risks that represent a significant danger to equipment and personnel in the short term, while threatening the military’s long-term ability to do its job, his Fall 2012 report concluded.

“The Canadian Forces rely on real property such as buildings, airfields and training facilities to carry out its missions,” Auditor General Michael Ferguson said. “I am concerned that the (Defence) Department is not yet adequately maintaining and renewing its assets.”

National Defence’s real-estate portfolio comprises 21 main bases and numerous smaller installations across the country.

All told, the department has 20,000 buildings, such as armouries and barracks, storage and maintenance facilities and hangers, and more than 13,000 airfields, docks, firing ranges, roads, sewers and fuel tanks.

The department reported in 2010 that 43 per cent of its non-residential buildings and 61 per cent of its works were more than 50 years old, and said the condition of those properties had steadily declined since budget cuts were implemented in the 1990s.

Yet while the Conservative government’s Canada First Defence Strategy has committed $40 billion over 20 years to maintaining or renewing the department’s property, the auditor general found major problems persisting — and getting worse.

Several factors are to blame, including poor planning, consistent under-estimating of how much maintenance and repairs will cost, and issues with how money is doled out for such tasks.

The result is that preventive maintenance activity has been largely abandoned in favour of tackling problems when they arise.

“The department reports that bases have been using available maintenance and repair funding to perform immediately required corrective actions instead of spending funds on preventive measures,” the auditor general’s report reads.

Not only does that mean property is continuously deteriorating, but health and safety risks are proliferating.

The report cited one example at Canadian Forces Base Edmonton where 44 new tanks were delivered in March 2012 but a lack of planning and funding meant facilities to house the armoured vehicles will not be ready until at least 2016.

The tanks are now being housed in a garage that does not have adequate exhaust and ventilation systems, meaning the bay doors must be open at all times, even in extremely cold weather.

In addition, the report notes “noise levels may be causing permanent hearing damage to the workers.”

And personnel do not have a barrier between themselves and the tanks’ engines during testing.

“Should there be a catastrophic failure of engine components, projectiles and hot engine fluids could pose a serious hazard to nearby workers.”

The auditor general also found that many facilities are not fire-code-compliant since inspection, testing and maintenance of alarms and other systems is not regularly done.

A partially disabled fire-alarm system was blamed for $25 million in damage caused by a blaze at a recent Quebec City Armoury.

Although the Defence Department has set a target of 1.4 per cent of each military base’s budget for maintenance and repair, only CFB Kingston met that target.

CFB Esquimalt and CFB North Bay were the worst offenders, spending 0.39 and 0.40, respectively in fiscal year 2010-11.

Officials at bases told the auditor general one reason for this is because funds are often received late and do not match construction cycles, which meant money that was supposed to be allocated for repairs and maintenance couldn’t be spent.

Meanwhile, the auditor general took particular issue with what some see as an effort to fudge the numbers when it comes to reporting how much money is actually required to maintain and replace existing and new property.

For example, one recently constructed truck shelter valued at $893,000 was listed as having a replacement cost of only $395,000. Similarly, a new control tower at CFB Trenton had a historical cost of $14.6 million, but a listed replacement cost of $5.2 million.

“This means that investments based on reality replacement cost may not be enough to maintain and repair or recapitalize the department’s real property,” the report said.

The auditor general also examined 12 projects valued at more than $1 million that were tendered to third parties and found the vast majority were late when it came to completion — with two of them nearly five years overdue.